Jim and Bexley Lister
"And I said, 'How is it possible to get two babies without a woman on board.' And you said, 'I don't know, but it's going to be a lot of fun finding out.' How right you were, Listy!" -Arnold Rimmer ("Parallel Universe") Jim and Bexley Lister are the twin sons and brothers of Dave Lister encountered in various alternate timelines, "future echoes" and parallel dimensions seen or mentioned throughout the run of the television show, and also in the Red Dwarf novels. The twins were named after Jim Bexley Speed, Dave Lister's favourite player (roof attack) in his favourite Zero Gravity Football team, the London Jets. Television appearances Future Echoes In his mid-twenties, Bexley was blown up when the Navicomp in the Drive Room of Red Dwarf blew up in his face whilst he repaired it. Arnold Rimmer saw this in a vision of the future, saying that he looked exactly like Lister and was around the same age (25) so the vision was at least two and a half decades into the future. (RD: Future Echoes). : It is unclear whether this Bexley was the same Bexley that was born in "Parallel Universe", who somehow managed to return to his father's universe, or another version, perhaps the one from "Dimension Jump", or an as yet unseen Bexley, or Bexley born in Lister's own continuity. The Dwarfers later saw a future echo from much closer into the nearer future, with Lister holding the new-born twin boys. (RD: Future Echoes). : These were presumably the babies Lister was pregnant with in "Parallel Universe" and which were born in the "lost episode", "Dad", although it possible all this occurred in a redundant timeline, since later episodes messed around the continuity with time-travel related shenanigans often. With Deb Lister The twins were born aboard Red Dwarf to their mother Dave Lister after he had a one night stand with their father Deb Lister, in an alternate universe. In this universe it is the male that carries the child and gives birth, something that Lister wasn't aware of and Rimmer appeared to relish. (RD: Parallel Universe) Happening within three days of their birth, Jim and Bexley were returned to their father's (Deb's) universe, because they were aging rapidly aboard Red Dwarf, becoming eighteen years old before reuniting with their "dad" (Opening scroll of RD: Backwards) These events and the caesarian birth (performed by Kryten) are further expanded on in the "lost episode", "Dad". With Kristine Kochanski An alternate version of Dave Lister from the same dimension as Ace Rimmer was a successful engineer at a Space Corps test base on Mimas. This version of Lister was called Spanners and was married to his lifetime-love Kristine Kochanski, with twin sons Jim and Bexley. (RD: Dimension Jump) When the brain-sucking Psirens attempted to lure Lister and thus the rest of the crew onto the asteroids they inhabit with illusions; one of these is creating a vision of Kristine Kochanski telling Dave that she had two sons by him from when she used the Sperm Bank on Red Dwarf - Jim and Bexley. (RD: Psirens) As of Series X, the twins have not been seen again, although Lister sends himself a card on Father's Day. (RD: Fathers & Suns) Appearances in novels * The twins are living with their parents Lister and Kochanski in the novel Better Than Life, although this is in a computer-generated virtual reality. In this reality, they are two years old but behave as adults. They can drive, are independent and speak fluently. In Backwards, it is mentioned that the twins had a reverse upbringing, eventually becoming babies and returned to their mother's womb. In Last Human, they were named Mij and Yexleb in the backwards reality. To be completed Behind the Scenes * In "Future Echoes", the film crew were unable to stop the babies who played Jim and Bexley from crying, so it was decided to shoot anyway, with Craig Charles given a line of dialogue to reference the crying as he held the babies — "Stop crying and say cheese, boys!" An Easter egg feature on the DVD release includes raw footage of the Polaroid developing showing Charles holding the babies; a microphone was left on during this taping and the babies can be heard crying loudly in the background for part of the clip. Category:Alternate Reality Category:Characters Category:Series I Category:Series II Category:Series III Category:Series VI Category:Red Dwarf Crew Category:Unseen characters